Turrets, Trapezes, and the Purple Button

I had been warned about the purple button. I knew that once you pressed it, and it clicked solidly into its brass fitting, your insight and your mind would forever be transformed. Guaranteed evolution yes, but it was uni-directional movement. The button can only be pressed once, and it never returns to its original stasis, nor do you.

For most of us, facing the reality of this sudden death/sudden birth is discomfiting, unraveling, and so we are happy to examine the button from a safe museum distance - marvel at its beauty along with the worn black walnut box where it has lived for most of its life. We fold our arms and arch back a little, squint, "hmmm..." Lift our brow, look toward our friend, (but not in the eyes) and exclaim dispassionately "It's quite pretty isn't it". We are already looking on to the next exhibit. [Let's not linger]

In the same way that the human afterlife is a vast unknown, what happens to you after pressing the purple button is veiled in deep secrecy, joyful secrecy. But since you've read this far, I'm going to wikileak a little right here - because during a rare moment of dis-curtained consciousness, a purple button presser entered one of my dreams and gave me a hint of what the button does. She sidled up to me and pillow talked thusly:

"It's like reading a story when you're a little kid. You know, a Roald Dahl story? Something like that. Kids these days don't know what they are missing. Their stories are spoon fed to them via multi million dollar cinematic special effects. So these kids, they just become passive receptors of the story, they're not participants. Do you remember reading James and the Giant Peach, or riding in Charlie's Great Glass Elevator? Alice's tiny hallway? Remember how the words were just ingredients offered to you, and you entered this wordy world - which soon became wordless and real - an internal landscape of wonder. You pieced together the scene, the smells, the characters. It's yours. You own the story. For the time you're reading that book, you are LIVING in the story. You are the special effects director. Movies can't touch that. Pressing the purple button is like looking at the world in this way. You become wildly engaged in the process of life and its unfolding. Your liberated imagination permeates your food, your kisses, your work. Life offers paint, clay, musical notes, rhythm, and you become the sculptor and orchestrator of your reality. The fear of other opinions dissolves, the status quo is so distant and lens blurred you can barely remember what it is. Life becomes a playground for the soul's calling. That's what happens when you press the purple button."

Then she disappeared, or I woke up, or she was me, or I was her. But wait, isn't this supposed to be an article about architect Bart Prince's "Dancing Rock" on Maui? Yes it is. So here's the deal - in order to understand the subject of this article which I will have to refer to as a "house" (for there is no word yet invented that really captures what's between these walls) - this wildly playful magnificent house, you have to be willing to press the purple button. I pressed the button and I'm so glad I did.

Welcome to Bart Prince's Dancing Rock, Kula, Maui, HI

Walking into this house is walking into Roald Dahl's Giant Peach, Harry Potter's impossible tent, Alice's shrinking hallway. Climb a ladder to a hidden turret bedroom? Sure. Float over the kitchen on a suspended plexiglass cat walk? Yup. Flying, Crawling, sitting, sprawling. Light, dark, giant, tiny. What chapter is this? Which story am I building at this table? What notion will the sun deliver to me this morning through the giant temple doors, egg-cracking the house to the power of Haleakala. What is this silence? This noise? A Bird? A Drum? Shall we kneel and steep tea, or grab a pillow and stretch, wrestle, tickle, or contemplate? What shall we build in the kitchen?

Dancing Rock is a voluminous protector; a Marchioness of incongruent realities. The walls here dim down the outer world, the chatter, the emails, the media's poison. It's clean and safe in here. Wood and air. Up and down, in and out. It's a place to become familiar with the deepest concept of love. The world here begins again and again in a river rapids of tumbling joyments [new word - joyful moments]. After every visit to this place, I leave a little more DAZED AND INFUSED. Can you feel it yet? Please contact me if you would like to discuss a visit: Liam Ball R(B) 808.280.7809 liam@hawaiilife.com Listing information is HERE.

This chunk of magic is currently listed for sale by Wailea Realty Corp. Photography and video by yours truly. "Cumulus" Music track by Imogen Heap. Special thanks to listing agent Christina Haywood R(B) for assistance in bringing this article to you.